Cafe building's past revealed

With the new Dome opening in Port Hedland last week, one resident remembered a time when the heritage-listed building was accommodation for medical staff.

Long-term Hedland resident Joan Foley has a direct connection with the history of the District Medical Officers' Quarters building, which has been incorporated into the Dome.

Ms Foley's mother Mary Waldron (nee Buckley), was a nurse who travelled to Port Hedland in 1946.

Ms Foley said with too few domestic nurses left in WA at the end of World War II, her mother was "manpowered" to Hedland to work as one of three nurses at the hospital.

"The matron, Olwyn Morgan, and the midwife, Althea Dearing, along with Mary were the sole medical help and managed all the care as the original nurse practitioners," she said.

"They managed fish hook removals, snake bites and prepared their own medications."

Once a week, the three nurses were visited by a doctor who lived in Marble Bar in an air-conditioned house.

Ms Foley said there was only one air-conditioned house in Port Hedland at the time, and it was used to allow nightshift workers to sleep during the day.

"The town had a recognised behaviour of siesta, where all the townsfolk had a rest after lunch to avoid the heat of the day," she said.

"This would also happen for the nurses, who would see their patients fed then go next door to the nurses' quarters for their rest."

The District Medical Officer's Quarters was built in 1907 as a home for the resident magistrate, who was also the medical officer of the area.

The building continued to serve as the residence of successive medical officers until 1965, when it was designated nurses' quarters - nurses lived there for nearly 40 years until the building was vacated in the early 2000s.

Ms Foley said her mother's experiences at the Port Hedland hospital had a bearing on her own career.

"Her tales of working in the north as a nurse and a childhood going through photos of her time there eventually resulted in both my sister and myself becoming nurses and working in the north, with me finding myself firmly fitting to my place of Port Hedland," she said.

"It was here she met my father, who was the first civilian officer in charge of the airport.

"They married in 1947, had six children and lived and loved extremely happily together for 59 years."